1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an adjustable bracket assembly for mounting a head rail of a blind.
2. Description of the Related Art
Adjustable bracket assemblies have the possibility to adjust the spacing between a wall or ceiling and a head rail of a blind. They generally include a bracket body and a slide member co-operating with the bracket body. The bracket body is fixable to a structure such as a wall or ceiling. The slide member includes means for carrying a spring clip or the like for mounting a head rail of a blind. The slidable member is used to adjust the distance between the wall or ceiling and the mounted blind.
Such an adjustable bracket is e.g. known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,459. A drawback of this bracket is that in order to adjust the distance between the mounted blind and the wall or ceiling a fastener, such as a screw, must be loosened and that such fastener can generally not be reached without dismounting the blind from the bracket.
Another adjustable bracket is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,616 where the slide body (11,51) includes clamping means (25, 75) for releasably engaging the slide body (11,51) to the bracket body in different positions along the bracket. The clamping means being either a latch arm (25) integrally formed to the slide body (11) having a nose (25a) for engaging detents or notches (19) on the bracket body (10) or a pivotable clamp device including a lever (75) and a cam member (76), the cam member (76) being positioned between the upper side of the bracket arm and the under side of the upper portion (73) of the slide body (51).
Although the bracket can now be adjusted without having to unscrew a fastener, there are several drawbacks. The latch arm with nose has as drawback that it is actuated by a pivotal movement and it therefore has to extend sideways from the slide body. Also there is a less secure single sided engagement of the slide body to the bracket. For ceiling mounted brackets where the bracket portion that carries the head rail is vertically oriented, such a single sided latching will hardly prevent the head rail from sliding under its own weight through the engagement of the latch arm and downwardly along the bracket. The lever and cam member latching means is also a pivotably actuated latching means. Here the drawback lies in the fact that a very small lever must be handled in a small space. For disengaging it is generally possible to push the lever with the end of a screw-driver to pivot into the un-latched position. But the reverse pivot movement of the lever for latching requires that one can actually hold the lever. This means that there must be a handling space over the bracket, resulting in a bracket assembly that must be mounted to a wall relatively far removed from the ceiling or to a ceiling relatively far removed from the wall to allow for the necessary handling space.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an adjustable bracket assembly of which the clamping means is operated by linear movement of the actuating means, the linear movement being in the same direction as the direction of adjustment of the head rail.